[MilCom] Re: Policy Question Public Posting of Logs with Copyright Restriction

[lrk]

On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 09:37:58AM -0400, Bill Jones wrote:
>  
> However it used to be that while it was perfectly legal for anyone
> to listen to 
> most communications, that it was not legal to tell others about the content 
> and/or the frequencies of most communications.

I have never seen anything in the 1934 act which prohibited telling others
about frequencies. Basically, it was like copyright, if you heard something
that belonged to someone else, you couldn't use it for yourself. This was
mostly a recognition of the nature of radio and the way gentlemen should
treat each other.


> I know that this rule has been 
> almost uniformly ignored both before and after the recent amendments, but it 
> was something that always hung overhead in that it could be enforced if they 
> wanted to come after you for some other reason.  But "if" that segment of the 
> regulation is by chance still in effect, perhaps by labeling the report as 
> anonymous, both the publication and the individual is off the hook?

Many radio signals were never covered by the prohibitions. Amateurs, for
example, were not not allowed to communicate for commercial purposes and
thus their signals were not private. Most broadcast signals were not
protected except for commercial use. And government signals, such as police,
were/are public in nature and not protected.


>    Is anyone familiar enough with the NEW communications act to comment on 
> whether the prohibition on divulging the content/freq of certain
> communications monitored is still in effect?  Just curious. 

As far as I know, the 1934 rule has not been changed. If you overhear
private radio communications you can't use it for your own gain. There
is obviously a grey area regarding government communications. The ECPA
has a line saying monitoring government communications is not prohibited.
Public servants are your employees and what they do is your business.

Basically, I was told by someone who was there that the DoJ testified
that the ECPA was "vague and confusing" by the Constitutional definition
and therefore unenforceable. So most of it was assigned to Treasury to
enforce. :)

It's not like a free country. In the US if you attract the attention
of the fedz and become a target, you too can be put in a military prison
and not charged with any crime.


Getting back to copyright: It is a protection of the "work", not the
information. You can get information from other books and write your
own. Using the work other people did, however, may be illegal depending
on the copyright. There is also a "fair use" doctrine which makes it
legal for you to copy a page or two from a book in the library and take
them home to study. And you can tape a TV program to watch later. The
point is it is someone's work and they have a right to it.

So putting a copyright notice on your postings just means you claim the
right to the work you did and anyone wanting to use the results of your
work should get permission. It does not prohibit anyone from printing
out the posting or making their own lists.



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